Barry & Enright Productions

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Barry & Enright Productions (also known as Jack Barry & Dan Enright Productions and formally known as Barry, Enright & Friendly Productions) was a United States television production company that was formed in 1947 by TV producers Jack Barry and Dan Enright.

Jack & Dan first met each other in New York while working at radio station WOR. Their first projects together were problem solving panel shows which were Juvenile Jury, Life Begins at Eighty & Wisdom of the Ages (the former was a kids show).

Jack & Dan also created another kids show called Winky Dink & You. A show that inspired children to use their imaginations and use a "magic slate" to draw along with Mr. Barry.

In 1953 Barry & Enright made the jump to game show life by creating their first adult show called Back That Fact which was very short-lived lasting only two months. They continued producing failures for the next three years, but three years later in 1956, they produced & created three more game shows for NBC (two of which were answers to The $64,000 Question): Twenty One, Tic Tac Dough and the original version of Concentration which they created with Robert Noah & Buddy Piper. Then in 1958 they produced & created Dough Re Mi, a Name That Tune-like game show. Two of them were cancelled due to the Quiz Show Scandals, while two other were sold to NBC Productions. Shortly after, the company fell apart altogether.

For the next nine years, both Jack & Dan tried to make it on their own with no success until 1969 when Jack Barry returned as an emcee replacing Dennis Wholey on The Generation Gap. Two years later Jack reformed his company but ran it solo. The first show he created & hosted was The Reel Game for ABC. At the same time, former partner Dan Enright became executive producer for All About Faces with Richard Hayes. Then in 1972, a tremendous breakthrough occurred; The Joker's Wild came to our TV sets and was a hit series for the next three years on CBS. Dan became Jack's partner again when he was asked to executive produce the show in 1975 before the cancellation. Joker tried to become a series before that, first in 1968, then again in 1969, and in 1971 under the name The Honeymoon Game.

For the next eight years starting in 1976, Barry & Enright produced & created more game shows and other TV shows mostly in syndication with the help of Colbert Television Sales. They even revived The Joker's Wild & Tic Tac Dough also for the syndicated market. In addition, they found time to produce movies in the early 80s. They did manage to find time to create two network shows Break the Bank (2) for ABC with a syndicated version premiering the following year & Hot Potato for NBC. All this came to a halt when Jack Barry (who was a life long smoker) died of a sudden heart attack on May 2, 1984, while jogging in Central Park; around that time he considered leaving his current hosting duties on Joker and passing the torch to Jim Peck, who subbed for Barry on several occasions. However, after he died, the torch was instead passed to Bill Cullen, who just finished hosting Hot Potato.

Dan Enright ran the company solo starting in 1984 and made several changes in addition to the one above, much to the chagrin of its longtime staffers, including director/producer Richard S. Kline and Jack Barry's two children Jon & Doug, and so they quit and formed Kline & Friends which produced game shows of their own. Dan later married Vice President of Public Relations and former Wheel of Fortune hostess Susan Stafford and renamed the company Stafford-Enright Productions, but the marriage & newly-renamed company didn't last long, as Dan Enright himself passed away due to cancer on May 22, 1992, and the company renamed to The Susan Stafford Company. On December 7, 1992, Sony Pictures Entertainment acquired majority of the Barry & Enright game show library except those owned by NBC.

Known employees

Some known employees have included Susan Stafford who was vice president for public relations. Another noted staffer was Louis M. Heyward, who was vice president for development. Heyward is the father of Andy Heyward, who was chairman and chief executive officer of DiC Entertainment. Barry's sons Jonathan and Douglas Barry, his daughter Barbara Barry, Dan Diana, Chris Sohl, Gary Cox and Ron Greenberg (who, on and off, was also an independent producer; he may be best known for The Who, What, or Where Game) were prominent employees of Barry & Enright.

Robert Noah and Howard Felsher, who were producers of Twenty One and Tic Tac Dough respectively, saw their careers revived several years after the quiz show scandals faded from the public's memory, with Mr. Noah first working for Goodson-Todman, as producer on the original Match Game, then working for many years with Heatter-Quigley Productions, as executive producer on several of their shows, beginning with the original version of The Hollywood Squares. From there, he finished his career with Reg Grundy Productions, on shows like Scrabble. Mr. Noah also wrote a novel, a fictionalized account of the quiz show scandals, All The Right Answers in 1988. Howard Felsher also went to work for Goodson-Todman, where he was the producer for the second version of Password, which aired on ABC. In 1976, he was executive producer of the original version of Family Feud, where at times during the show's run, he and host Richard Dawson were involved in their own "feuds" on occasion, for real.

Barry & Enright producer (and frequent director) Richard S. Kline, set designer John C. Mula, and music composer Hal Hidey (even though Tic-Tac-Dough and The Joker's Wild would continue to use his music package) would leave the company, following Jack Barry's death, to form Kline & Friends, where they would co-produce the game shows, Win, Lose or Draw and 3rd Degree, with Burt Reynolds and Bert Convy. Gary Cox left following Barry's death to join Reg Grundy Productions, which was adjacent to Barry & Enright in Century City, as an associate producer of Sale of the Century. Ron Greenberg departed Barry & Enright a year before to produce other game show projects. Barry's sons, Jon and Douglas, also worked for Kline & Friends following their father's death, helping to produce Strike it Rich and the 1990 revival of The Joker's Wild.

Longtime Chuck Barris game show announcer Johnny Jacobs, a longtime friend of Jack Barry's, was the primary announcer of all Jack Barry-produced and Barry & Enright produced-game shows from 1972 to 1977, while working on Barris' The Newlywed Game, The Dating Game and The Gong Show, among others. In 1977, a year after Let's Make a Deal went off the air, its announcer Jay Stewart replaced Jacobs as its primary announcer for four years, and was also its primary spokesman for all Barry & Enright projects outside of the game show world. Jacobs, who died in 1982, did fill in for a few months during the 1978-79 season of The Joker's Wild, and in addition, Johnny Gilbert was also used as a fill-in. Bob Hilton was also used as a fill-in announcer towards the final weeks of the 1979-80 season.

In 1981, Stewart left Barry & Enright Productions following his daughter's suicide. He was replaced by Charlie O'Donnell, who at the time had just finished a five-year run as announcer for Wheel of Fortune. O'Donnell announced for The Joker's Wild, Bullseye, Tic Tac Dough, and Hot Potato during his time with B&E, and left after the 1985-86 season. Again, Johnny Gilbert filled in for O'Donnell on occasion, as well as John Harlan. In 1989, the new announcer for B&E is Larry Van Nuys.

Besides Barry, some of the hosts Barry & Enright Productions employed during its existence were:

Jim Peck: frequent substitute host for Barry on The Joker's Wild, was originally intended to become host following Barry's retirement.
Geoff Edwards: host of Hollywood's Talking and Play the Percentages.
Bill Cullen: host of Hot Potato, took over for Barry on The Joker's Wild after his death in place of Peck, who remained part of the show as Cullen's substitute from time to time.
Wink Martindale: host of Tic Tac Dough, later co-produced Bumper Stumpers with company for broadcast on Global Television Network in Canada and on USA Network.
Art James: Original announcer and substitute host on Concentration (1958-60); host of Blank Check, later an announcer for The Joker's Wild and Tic Tac Dough.
Hugh Downs: Original host of Concentration.
Gene Rayburn: Jack Barry's substitute host of the original daytime Tic Tac Dough until 1958, when he became host of Dough Re Mi.
Bill Wendell: Replaced Jack Barry as host of Tic Tac Dough after Barry removed himself as host of both it and Twenty-One.
Monty Hall: Substitute host for Jack Barry as host on Twenty-One during the summer of 1958. Five years later he would go on to become the host, creator & producer of Let's Make a Deal.
Jim Lange: host of Hollywood Connection and Bullseye, plus hosted a 1982 pilot for a revival of Twenty-One.
Tom Kennedy: host of original version of Break the Bank.
Nipsey Russell: host of two separate revivals of Juvenile Jury.
Jim Caldwell: hosted final season of Tic-Tac-Dough after Martindale's departure.
Brian Robbins: hosted the short-lived Pictionary while starring in the successful Head of the Class.

In addition, Jim Perry, Peter Tomarken, Patrick Wayne and Bill Rafferty were given auditions for future game show pilots, none of which was produced. Wayne was eventually chosen to host the aforementioned short-lived 1990 version of Tic Tac Dough, which was the last Barry & Enright production prior to Enright's folding of the company in 1991.

Shows Produced

Owned by NBC Universal Television

Back That Fact (1953)
You're On Your Own (1956–1957)
Tic Tac Dough (1956–1959, 1990–1991) (Formerly owned by Granada International through their acquisition of the ITC library.)
Twenty One (1956–1958, 1982 unsold pilot)
High Low (1957)
Concentration (1958–1973) (co-owned with FremantleMedia)
Dough Re Mi (1958–1960)
Pictionary (1) (1989)
The Joker's Wild (1990–1991) (A Kline and Friends Production in association with Jack Barry Productions.)

Owned by Sony Pictures Television

Jack Barry Productions

The Joker's Wild (1968-1970 pilots and 1972-1975 Jack Barry Productions, 1977-1986 Barry & Enright Productions distributed by Colbert Television Sales) (This series was a property of Jack Barry Productions throughout the entire run)
The Honeymoon Game (1970 unsold pilot) (In association with Metromedia Producers Corporation)
The Reel Game (1971) (in association with Four Star International and ABC)
Hollywood's Talking (1973)
Countdown (1974 unsold pilot)
Blank Check (1975)
We've Got Your Number (1975 unsold pilot)

Barry & Enright Productions

Note: Denotes series (*) distributed by Colbert Television Sales

Break the Bank (1976–1977)* (served as both network and syndication)
Way Out Games (1976–1977) (In association with MGM Television) (co-owned by Warner Bros. Television and Turner Entertainment Co.)
The Hollywood Connection (1977) (In association with Golden West Broadcasting)
Tic Tac Dough (1978-1986 only)*
Decisions Decisions (1979? unsold pilot)
Joker Joker Joker (1979–1981) (Children's edition of The Joker's Wild)*
Play the Percentages (1980)*
Bullseye (1980–1982)*
Hot Potato (1984)
Bumper Stumpers (1987–1990) (In association with the Global Television Network, Wink Martindale Enterprises, and the USA Network)
All About the Opposite Sex (1990)
Hold Everything! (1990)

Shows and Movies that are related to Barry & Enright

The Joker's Wild & Tic Tac Dough Spcial (a local special that aired at KCOP TV in 1981)
Quiz Show (a movie that documents the famous "Quiz Show Scandals of the 1950's" about the short-lived game show Twenty-One that was released in 1994)
Gettin' Wild with Snoop Dogg (a six episode only documentary series about rapper Snoop Dogg's journey to being a game show host that aired on TBS app, TBS social media handles including the Facebook Watch app and via TBS.com in 2017)
Snoop Dogg Presents The Joker's Wild (2017-present)

Trivia

Barry & Enright Productions tend to use split screen imagery on most of their shows like Tic-Tac-Dough and The Joker's Wild.

The Logo

The most unique thing about the company is its logo. The logo consists of the connecting "B" & "E" with their last names contained. In the 50s and mid-70s, their first names are also contained. Starting with the 1989 Nipsey Russell revival of Juvenile Jury, the announcer's voice was redubbed by Larry Van Nuys: "(This is Larry van Nuys), [Title of the game show] is a Barry & Enright Production" over the 1984 version of the 1976 B&E logo. In 1990, the B&E logo changed in a different style.